


Succession

by TheBodyBioelectric



Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider (Video Game)
Genre: Cuddling, F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Ghosts, Ghosts back from the dead, Graphic depictions of ghost violence, Himiko is a queen, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I didn't tag for violence but like I guess a ghost dies, One Shot, S.S. Endurance Week, Sam is an X-man now, She didn't get to talk the whole game so, She likes to talk a lot, So like double ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 07:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11375286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBodyBioelectric/pseuds/TheBodyBioelectric
Summary: One Shot fix-it fic of Sam coming to terms with her destiny as the heir to Himiko and Lara with the fact that she really likes killing people.





	Succession

**Author's Note:**

> So this was the first chapter of a book length fic I had planned after I was super pumped from playing the Tomb Raider reboot. While I really like the scene, and I really like the aspects of the characters that I got to play with, I don't think I like it 50,000 words worth. But after rereading it, I think it makes a pretty good One shot with an interesting open ending. I kind of wish I had the time to write this story, but since I'm writing a novelette for Star Wars at the moment, I'm in a bit of a bind.
> 
> There were going to cannibalistic conquistadors though, and it's really a shame I couldn't incorporate those into this one shot.

Sam was back on the island again. This dream happened every night. Sam should have been used to it by now, but it still inspired pulse pounding terror in her. 

The howling wind whipped her hair as Mathias yelled his nonsense into the wind, and Sam felt the agonizing pain burn through her body as Himiko tried to rip out her soul again.

Suddenly, the memory slowed dramatically and the pain dulled until it stopped. Himiko’s body sighed before slumping over, the blue tendrils that had put Sam in agony retracting back in. Sam didn’t feel weak like she had on the island afterwards, and quickly got off of her knees into a standing position.

A form of blue light emerged from Himiko’s body while it crumbled to dust, blowing away into the wind.

“So you’re mind has finally cleared,” Himiko said, standing. “That is good.”

“Who…” Sam trailed off. She stopped herself before she said something really stupid. This was just a dream, and she was just having an awful trauma nightmare of that unnaturally seductive voice that in turns shrieked inside of her head as it tried to rip apart her mind and caressed and soothed her as she cried in agony. 

“I’m not just a dream, Samantha Nishimura,” Himiko said. “Although we are certainly in a dream. I am weak, and can only whisper to you in the daytime. I am the spirit of Himiko, although I am quickly fading.”

“That isn’t possible,” Sam managed to get out. “Lara killed you.”

“Yes, she mortally wounded me,” Himoko said with quiet resignation. “I have accepted this now. There is nothing left for me but to slip beyond and join my stormguard in whatever eternal punishment awaits us.”

Sam Noticed Mathias to her right violently yell something and gesture wildly with his staff, sinister enough even in slow motion that it startled Sam into skittering away, ready for him to spring to life again. Himiko tsked lightly.

“You need to learn to not fear such puppets, no matter how much intelligence or bluster they have, my precious first daughter,” Himiko said. “For despite all of their supposed independent will, most men are simple beasts of the field easily influenced by a few whispers at the correct moments into destroying themselves through their ambition.”

“He held me for days in a cannibalistic blood cult as I heard my friends tortured to death, before he decided to try to burn me alive,” Sam said, her voice quavering. “He’s sick.”

Himiko dismissively waved her hand. “Mathias was a blunt tool at best. I’m sorry you were not treated as you deserved.” 

“As I deserved?” Sam said, grasping onto to the burning rage at Himiko’s dismissiveness as she stood to jam a finger in the Sun Queen’s chest. “AS I DESERVED? You tried to tear my mind apart so you could drive my body around like a meat puppet until you could get another, all because you couldn’t let go of your power!”

“I had good reasons,” Himiko said with an edge to her voice. “My continued rule kept armies from marching and cities from being razed over, and over, and over again, with thousands, millions of people butchered like livestock. I gave my priestesses the best life they could ever have in return for their sacrifice. I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

“They didn’t need you, though,” Sam said. “You could have taught them how to rule after you passed a natural life. You didn’t have to kill them and drag your entire civilization into hell with you.”

Himiko’s eyes burned with a cold blue fire as she pushed her face into Sam’s personal space in a manner resembling a schoolyard bully rather than a Japanese queen. Sam refused to budge an inch. She was through running and cowering, especially to murderers too cowardly to face up to their own actions.

Himiko’s body relaxed as she turned to sit on the bench her corpse had been sitting on moments before. 

“I suppose I could not ask for anything more than to be deposed by one who is my superior. By someone who can is strong enough to not make my mistakes and give in to rage,” Himiko said. “I don’t have long for this Earth, and if I am to pass on my mantle, I wish it to be to you.”

“I don’t want you bloody mantle,” Sam spat.

“It is not yours to refuse. You have the strongest will of anyone I have met, Samantha Nishimura. I believed at first you were simply younger and more virile than me, which is how your mind held out for so long. I couldn’t conceive you were simply stronger than I, despite all my experience.”

“Lara’s the strong one,” Sam said. 

“She is strong as well,” Himiko said. “You have picked a worthy general for your court. Loyal almost to a fault, smart, willful, strong and clever. But she is not you. You are a ruler.”

“We don’t have Queens in our time,” Sam said. 

“It is not titles that make men, but men who make titles,” Himiko said. “It is a quote from a book my stormguard pulled from the corpse of a foreigner several hundred years ago, but I believe it still applies. It matters not what they call you as long as they bend to your will.” 

Sam looked over to see Lara and Mathias struggling on the ground, Mathias’ life blood spilling over them both.

“I don’t want people to bend to my will,” Sam said as she watched. 

“I can still see some of the parts of your mind I touched,” Himiko said. “Ever since you were a little girl you have wanted to grasp and mold those around you.”

“That’s not true,” Sam said as her voice grew brittle in her ears.

“You can’t lie to me, Sam. I’ve seen your mind,” the Sun Queen said. “You wished you had the power to make your parents notice you, to make them come home and pay attention to you. You acted out as a child would, but you wished you could simply force them to be better than they were. So you became a leader of your fellow students. Later, you met another abandoned girl, and you molded her. You pushed her to temper her own ambition and asceticism for your desire for her to live a complete life. You pushed her to have a reason, a focal point for her rage and ability. You took a beautiful piece of steel and gave it a razor edge.”

“Lara isn’t just some tool to be used and discarded,” Sam said. “That’s where we’re different. She would have made her mark without me. She’s her own person.”

“Yes, she is, but you pushed her from competence to greatness,” Himiko said with a sigh. “I envy you. It is like looking into a mirror in time; looking at a younger reflection of myself, a better version of myself. Before I gave into the temptation to live forever at the expense of all else. When I could still say what you have just said.”

“What do you mean,” Sam said warily.

“That people are more than tools, are worth protecting. I’m afraid I’m too far gone to say that,” Himiko said. 

“Is there a point to all of this?” Sam asked.

“You have my strength of will, Samantha, and my predilections,” Himiko said. “And now you have access to the power I spent lifetimes trying to acquire more of. It is my gift to you. It is the last gift I can ever give. In truth calling it a gift is another self-serving lie, as I can’t control whether you wield this power, or how. But I do wish for you to inherit my powers, even as I slip from this Earth. Soon, I shall remain only in whispers.”

“What are you saying,” Sam asked nervously as she watched Lara try to shove her way through the terrifyingly strong winds.

“I’m telling you that you have power, Samantha,” Himiko said. “From this world and Outside of it. I hope that the gateway I have opened in you will serve you well, my inheritor, and that I can impart the wisdom in you to use this power wisely, as I have failed to do.”

Himiko placed her hands on her knees as she sat up and let out a breath as Lara pulled back her torch. 

“And now all that is left is to see the gods. Let them be more merciful than I deserve.”

Sam watched as Himiko’s spirit shattered into a thousand pieces with a shriek as Lara’s torch was jammed into her chest. The world sped up to a normal again.

Lara turned to Sam and relief flooded over her face as she embraced her. Sam wasn’t cradled in Lara’s arms this time, half unconscious and without the strength to hold her head up. She was standing next to Lara, able to embrace her fully, push as much of their bodies together as possible.

In the bunk below her, Lara couldn’t sleep.

It was ironic, really. She’d spent four days barely sleeping or eating enough, constantly on the move, constantly struggling and always moving and now that she had finally stopped to rest she couldn’t. Lara rubbed her eyes with her hand again.

Of course, she had slept the first few nights on the American Freighter that had found them. She had had more trouble staying awake than falling asleep, her body becoming one large ache whenever she tried to move, fever dreams of oni and hunting down men haunting her. 

But now she was restless. 

Lara thought of Sam sleeping above her. She heard Sam turn again in her sleep. Maybe she was having a nightmare. Maybe Lara shouldn’t have said no to sleeping in the same bed as Sam. It’s not like they hadn’t done that before, and if Sam was willing to risk her parents finding out about it then who was Lara to say no?

Lara knew exactly who she was to say no when her girlfriend needed comfort. A monster. Not from saying no, that was for Sam’s own good. From lying to Sam about what she had done, who she had become on the island. About why she couldn’t ever go home. Why she couldn’t have a home.

When Sam had asked Lara to go to sleep with her, Lara had said, “I think I need to spend a night in my own bed.”

She had left out, “Because you thought I was your white knight coming to save you from the monsters and I was too scared to tell you that I’m just a more vicious monster.”

Lara felt her mind slip back onto the island. She felt her breath steady and her pupils dilate as she felt a strange calm come over her as she felt bitingly cold water cover her from below the neck. Her arms, tired and suffering from overuse on the island, ached with the desire to feel the pull of a bow. 

She felt the lines of reality blur again, and she couldn’t be entirely sure whether she was recalling hunting these men in the forest waist deep in a mountain stream or whether she was hallucinating it or whether all the events that had led to her getting off Yamatai was a dream she’d had. The twisting in her gut told it didn’t matter though.

These men were here to find her.

And she was here to kill them.

She felt the thrum of the bow in her hands and the dew on her skin as she slowly murdered the men one by one, snuffing out their lives under the overcast sky. Ripping an arrow from the throat of the final man, she took a position behind a large slab of rock, and launched several grenades into a group of men and dogs huddled around the fire for warmth. The grenades ripped them open and sent hot shrapnel through them, and after a few moments of confusion and screaming, it was over.

She had never felt so alive.

Lara noticed a soft silhouette in front of the campfire. It was in the shape of a woman. Lara scowled. That wasn’t right. The Solarii were all men, and she hadn’t met anyone she knew here…

She realized the outline was of Sam wrapped in a blanket standing in front of the red glow of an alarm clock. Lara focused on Sam, focused on her sleepy eyes and her worried expression.

“Lara?” Sam said softly from the foot of the bed. Lara shook her head to clear out the last few whispers of the trees in the night. 

“Sam?” Lara asked.

“Were- were you asleep?” Sam asked. “Is the pain keeping you up? You can take another round of pain killers-“

“No, I’m fine,” Lara said. “I was just thinking. Why are you up? Bad dreams?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, looking embarrassed. “I was going to watch you sleep, because that usually calms me down. Sorry if that sounds creepy, but then I saw you just staring at the ceiling with a look in your eye and I wasn’t sure what I should do…”

“It’s alright Sam,” Lara said. “Just bad memories.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Sam said, looking away guiltily. 

“For what?” Lara asked. 

“That you had to save me because I’m a dumbass,” Sam said.

“Sam,” Lara’s voice softened. “Don’t ever be sorry for that. Mathias fooled all of us. I took a bloody cat nap while you were being abducted. You can’t possibly blame yourself for what happened.”

“Then why won’t you let me touch you?” Sam said as her voice broke. “Is it the island? Is it PTSD? Just tell me why so I can stop telling myself it’s me.”

“Sam of course it’s not you,” Lara said. “It’s that I can’t- you’re too close to me.”

“Lara,” Sam said, as she slowly lay down facing Lara. “Lara, I want to be close to you. I love being close to you. Don’t let that savior complex of yours tell you otherwise.”

“I don’t have a savior complex,” Lara said sullenly. Sam gave her a look.

“And yet here you are blaming yourself for saving me multiple times from an island of lunatics, trying to convince yourself you’re not good enough for me,” Sam said. 

“Don’t tell me how I’m feeling,” Lara said acidly, and she instantly wished she could take it back.

“Well one of us has to, and past experience says it isn’t going to be you,” Sam said. 

“I just need time,” Lara said sulkily.

“No, you want to run away as soon as you can stagger out of here,” Sam said. “It’s how you always deal with any commitments that scare you.”

Lara rolled over. She couldn’t hear this, not now. 

“Listen, Lara, I’m sorry, this wasn’t how this was supposed to go,” Sam said as she let an exasperated breath huff out of her. “It’s just I can feel you pushing me away. And the only way I’ve ever been able to get you to stop is to push into you.”

Lara stayed motionless on the bed for several moments before she couldn’t help herself and let out a single snicker.

“That’s the Lara I know,” Sam said proudly.

“You did that on purpose,” Lara complained.

“It’s not my fault you have the mind of a fourteen-year-old,” Sam said impishly.

“I’m a published academic,” Lara said indignantly.

“Who laughs at sex jokes,” Sam said as her voice grew softer. “Just like before.”

“I hope so,” Lara said as her face grew taught with worry once again.

“Look, if you really do need me to leave, I’ll leave,” Sam said in a softer tone. “But if you actually want me to stay, and are just feeling guilty, then I think I should stay and you can have an emotional IOU in the morning.”

Lara just sat on her side for several minutes. She knew she had to be strong, to keep moving. But there was nowhere more to move to, no objective to reach, and she found herself trembling. She was worn down, down to the bone. 

So when Sam’s tattooed arm reached around her stomach and Sam’s smaller body spooned up hesitantly behind her, Lara gently squeezed Sam’s hand and snuggled back against Sam’s warm body. Relief flooded her at finally being able to give in, to finally be able to stop fighting.

Lara felt her body unwind and relax into Sam as sleep took her.

The twin suns on Sam’s deltoids emitted a faint glow of blue light into the room as the two women slept peacefully through the night.


End file.
